1 million US lives lost to COVID, result of govt’s incompetence
The death toll in the US from COVID- 19 has surpassed 1 million, according to NBC News’ tally. The figure is the highest in the world in one country, and experts said such a massive cost of human lives reflects the failure of the US response to the pandemic and the incompetence of its government.
Some other institutes like Johns Hopkins University ( JHU) recored slightly smaller numbers of the US’ death toll, which were also approaching 1 million by Sunday.
The US has become the world’s “biggest failed country” on COVID response due to the politicization of the epidemic, conflicting policies and social disintegration, experts noted.
“The response to the epidemic is a matter of political capacity, the determination of the top leadership, and the ability of a country’s political system to adapt to this determination. Unfortunately, the US made a wrong choice,” Lü Xiang, research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.
US health experts have also reflected on the country’s failed response to the pandemic. The death toll did not have to be this bad, and the pandemic response could have been much better handled, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security in Baltimore, told a US media outlet.
Instead of focusing on epidemic prevention and control, the US government has released false information to mislead the public. Since the beginning of the pandemic, former US president Donald Trump told the public that “It’s going to disappear. One day, like a miracle, it will disappear.” Trump said this on February 27, 2020.
Observers noted that some US politicians are trying to downplay the harm by the epidemic, pushing for measures contrary to the advice of health experts, politicizing scientific issues and creating social tensions. The politicians are trying to shift the blame and stigmatize other countries.
On May 26, 2021, President Joe Biden ordered an intelligence review of what he said were two equally plausible scenarios of the origins of the COVID- 19. However, the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence offered no new conclusions. In the statement, “Intelligence Community” is mentioned six times, but no trace of “science” is found.
“After seeing how China’s zero- COVID policy has saved many lives, the biggest challenge for the US is how to rationalize its huge death toll,” Lü said. “Why does the US, the most developed country, have more than a million deaths? They have no answer to their people, so they choose to pass the buck and divert the public’s attention.”